Sited in the Thames between the Millennium Footbridge and the Globe Theatre on London’s Southbank, Realty is commissioned by Illuminate Productions in partnership with the Mayor’s Thames Festival.

Originally developed for installation in a Winchester waterway, Realty is an easy to assemble flat-pack, which can be quickly transported and erected at desired locations with a minimum of disturbance.

David Cotterrell first conceived the work after an extended trip to Canada. His experiences of the country, which claims 20% of the world’s fresh water resources, but only 0.5% of the global population, and is bound by its NAFTA compact with the US to selling water rights, inspired this anarchic piece of protest art.

Realty is an installation seeking a response: its temporal nature, the fact that it can be moved around in the back of the artist’s car and erected in less than 10 minutes, suggests a multiplicity of sites, and onlookers are invited to consider their own choice of location. The work challenges assertions of ownership over the built and natural environments. The extreme costs associated with living in London, the ferocity with which the city is being regenerated and reinvented, and the thriving business of buying and selling property are all taken to their most ludicrous extremes through the intervention.

With a dedicated page linked to Illuminate’s website, a telephone number, listings on the internet and in free property press supplements like Loot, Realty invites bidding for a ‘Desirable bijou property boasting 360˚ water views’.

The work will be documented and the resulting film will be shown as part of CORE from 16 September to 29 October 2006 at Union Works, New Globe Walk, London, SE1 9EB.